What the First Coordinated Annual Review on Defence Reveals Cards on the Table
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
2020 I ISSUE #20 EUROPEAN DEFENCE MATTERS What the first Coordinated Annual Review on Defence reveals CARDs on the table > A ‘STRATEGIC COMPASS’ > CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN > EDA INNOVATION FOR THE EU’S CSDP DEFENCE PRIZE 2020 EEAS’ Charles Fries The Commission’s new And the on what to expect Incubation Forum winners are... CONTENTS WELCOME 3 COVER STORY: 1st COORDINATED ANNUAL REVIEW ON DEFENCE (CARD) > First CARD report published Wake-up call and pathfinder: analysis of the main CARD findings & recommendations 4 > After the first CARD: What’s next? Giving the floor to Member States – interviews 10 > Arie Jan De Waard, Armaments Director, The Netherlands 11 > Simona Cojocaru, Defence State Secretary, Romania 12 > Saturnino Suanzes Fernández de Cañete, Capability Director, Spain 13 Opinion Editorial: General Éric Bellot des Minières 14 The view of the EU Military Staff (EUMS): 04 Vice-Admiral Hervé Bléjean 16 © Belgian Armed Forces, Vincent Bordignon > From CARD to PESCO How EDA supports the implementation of PESCO projects 18 FOCUS > German EU Presidency Strengthening the EU on security and defence: Opinion Editorial by German Defence State Secretary, Benedikt Zimmer 24 OPINION > EU Strategic Compass 11 Netherlands The of Defence © Ministry 12 of Defence © Romanian Ministry 13 of Defence © Spanish Ministry Concrete solutions for concrete challenges: article by Charles Fries, EEAS Deputy Secretary General for CSDP and Crisis Response 27 IN THE FIELD > Advancing Circular Economy in Defence > The road towards the ‘Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence’ 29 > Interview with European Commission (DG ENV) Director-General Florika Fink-Hooijer 32 34 © European Space Agency ESA > Three questions to... Luxembourg’s Defence Minister François Bausch 33 Editor-in-Chief CONTACTS Helmut Brüls SPOTLIGHT Elisabeth Schoeffmann > EDA-EU SatCen cooperation Design Head of Media & Communication Simon Smith Associates Natural partners 34 Helmut Brüls Printing Media & Communication Officer Drukkerij Hendrix NV European Defence Agency INDUSTRY TALK Kiezel Kleine-Brogel 55, B-3990 Peer Rue des Drapiers 17-23 Belgium > “We need to collaborate to create our own joint capabilities” B-1050 Brussels This document is published by EDA in Interview with Oliver Väärtnõu, CEO of Cybernetica 37 www.eda.europa.eu the interests of exchange of information Contact: [email protected] Front cover image; © Shutterstock INNOVATION CORNER Other images; EDA, Shutterstock, Catalogue number > EDA Defence Innovation Prize 2020 Thinkstock, iStockphoto QU-AC-20-002-EN-N ISSN (2443-5511) “And the winners are...” 40 EDA is a member of the European Military Press Association QUO VADIS EU DEFENCE? © European Defence Agency (EDA) November 2020. All rights reserved. The entire contents of this publication > A look beyond 2030 are protected by copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, By Frédéric Mauro (IRIS) 42 without the prior permission of EDA. The reproduction of advertisements in this publication does not in any way imply endorsement of their content by EDA. The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policy of EDA. 2 www.eda.europa.eu WELCOME Playing the CARD right To solve a problem efficiently, good practice calls first for a thorough and honest analysis of what is wrong only then to be followed by tailored corrective action. The EU’s endeavour to overcome the fragmentation of its defence landscape and move towards a more homogeneous, collaborative, efficient and interoperable Europe of defence, follows the same two-tier approach. The first Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), just endorsed by Defence Ministers, is a crucial piece of work as it 18 offers both elements of the above-described remedy: a plain © French Marine Nationale description of the shortcomings of purely national defence planning and capability development done in isolation; and plenty of concrete recommendations on how to do things better in the future, together. Now, it’s up to Member States to make the best of them. In the following pages, we analyse the key CARD findings and recommendations and take Member States’ pulse on the potential take-up of the collaborative opportunities identified by the CARD. We also look at the increasing number of PESCO projects whose implementation benefit from EDA support; also a reminder that the CARD’s goal is to spark collaborative projects which must eventually lead to joint defence capabilities. 32 33 We also hear from the German EU Presidency’s defence & security © European Commission © MoD Luxembourg priorities and get an insight into the ongoing work on the EU’s Strategic Compass. Furthermore, we put the spotlight on the Commission’s new Incubation Forum on Circular Economy in European defence as well as on EDA’s cooperation with the EU Satellite Centre. Finally, we can present the winners of the 2020 EDA Defence Innovation Prize. We hope you will enjoy this magazine. Should you have comments or recommendations, please get in touch: [email protected] 24 Elisabeth Schoeffmann Helmut Brüls © Bundeswehr - Jane Schmidt EDA Head of Media & Communication Editor-in-Chief 37 EUROPEAN DEFENCE MATTERS I 2020 I Issue #20 3 COVER STORY – COORDINATED ANNUAL REVIEW ON DEFENCE (CARD) First CARD report published Wake-up call and pathfinder Frank in pointing to existing shortcomings, yet constructive by offering options for improvements to come: the first Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), steered by the European Defence Agency (EDA) as the CARD penholder in close coordination with the EU Military Staff (EUMS) over the past 12 months, has achieved its double goal which was to review participating Member States’ defence activities in order to provide a realistic picture of Europe’s defence landscape and to promote cooperation opportunities for joint defence capability development. 4 www.eda.europa.eu The first CARD report, presented by EDA months, saw EDA collecting and analysing defence landscape remains fragmented to Defence Ministers on 20 November, is information gathered from individual Member and lacks coherence in several aspects, the outcome of an innovative approach States on their respective national defence notably as regards defence capabilities launched four years ago when the EU Global plans, in order to identify current trends and their development: existing capabilities Strategy (EUGS) called for the “gradual (defence spending, ongoing capability are characterised by a very high diversity synchronisation and mutual adaptation programmes) and future cooperation of types in major equipment and of national defence planning cycles and opportunities. The rationale behind the different levels of modernisation and of capability development practices” to CARD is that the regular reviews, to be interoperability, including logistic systems enhance the convergence between Member done every two years, will lead over time to and supply chains. What’s more, the EU’s States’ military assets and boost defence more synergies and increased coherence Military Level of Ambition is currently cooperation among them. between Member States´ defence planning, not achievable and the commitment to spending and capability development, Common Security and Defence Policy That said, this was quickly done: EU through targeted cooperation. (CSDP) missions and operations is very countries approved the CARD modalities in low with strong disparities between May 2017, concluded a test cycle in late 2018 Plain analysis participating Member States in terms before kicking off the first full CARD cycle in The CARD report’s assessment of the of engagement frameworks and overall September 2019 which, over a period of 10 current picture is unequivocal: Europe’s operational effort. Bordignon Vincent © Belgian Armed Forces, EUROPEAN DEFENCE MATTERS I 2020 I Issue #20 5 COVER STORY – COORDINATED ANNUAL REVIEW ON DEFENCE (CARD) Admittedly, the new EU defence cooperation This is also evidenced by the fact that “Europe’s defence tools launched since 2016 – the 2018 EU most Member States miss out on meeting capability development priorities resulting the collective European benchmarks on landscape remains from the revised Capability Development ‘collaborative equipment procurement’ fragmented and Plan (CDP), the CARD initiation, the (minimum 35% of total equipment spending) Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and on ‘collaborative defence R&T’ (minimum lacks coherence in and the European Defence Fund (EDF) – have 20% of total defence R&T spending), which several aspects” led to greater interaction among Member were commonly agreed more than a decade States as regards cooperation, including ago and adopted as individual PESCO dedicated projects in the PESCO framework. commitments in December 2017. However, they are too recent to deliver a significant and positive effect on guiding Consequently, defence spending on the trends on defence, on de-fragmentation collaborative projects remains scarce, and on increased operational commitment, also because budget allocations made by the CARD report stresses: “National defence Ministries of Defence to previously launched interests and related approaches continue national programmes leave limited margins to prevail”. for manoeuvre for collaborative defence spending until the mid-2020s. In the same Multinational